D&D General Mystery Challenge, a variant of Skill Challenge

[TheDelphian]

I recently wanted to run a mystery for my players but mysteries often have issues that don't occur in movies, novels or tv shows. In an RPG it often falls to the Players to solve a mystery and not necessarily the Characters.

So while I like Skill challenges which are usually run by having a number of successes before a number of failures. They often allow the players to chose the character and skill they wish to apply. I often found that this makes them too easy as only the highest skill bonuses are the only ones used as most can be justified in some manner.

For the Mystery challenge I wanted to run a mystery but realized the info dump I would have to perform to give my players a chance. It was in a fantasy city sewer system that was being disturbed by something. In order to figure it out the players would need a map, an understanding of many aspects of sewer environment and its denizens, and a slew of other bits of info. Giving them the most relevant information would almost spot light the clues too much.

Instead I ran it as a modified Skill challenge. They needed a number of clues to get the final location of the corrupting influence. I made it that every two failures would trigger additional encounters that made things harder for the group. All that mattered is eventually they got enough clues since complete failure would not be much fun or excitement. however enough failures might have led to further catastrophe.

For example the Clue in a certain encounter didn't matter it just counted as a success though some encounters I did give out what the actual clue was to help foreshadow the end boss fight, like thorns in the Rat Swarms fur, or oddly suspended undigested sap in the Sewer Slimes.

The encounters were also varied in the type, combat of course but social encounters talking with sewer managers/workers, even neutral to friendly creatures or folk in the sewers and exploration in searching certain passages etc.

It ran well and worked for me but wanted to get others input. So let me know what you think and try not to derail the thread if you come in hating or disliking Skill Challenges unless you have a constructive comments please.

Thanks

 

[Theory of Games]

IMO Challenges are an innovation of the industry. The structure of them forces players and their PCs to work together AND success can be a very satisfying experience for the group.

I never considered running a mystery using a Challenge and IMO it's not a bad idea. I use more of a Gumshoe method giving the players the clues and as much info as possible. Usually the players still struggle with it. But I really like your concept.

Did you steal it from somewhere?

 

[TheDelphian]

No.

I cam up with it as a solution to players in a group. I found in a mystery only half the group engages and the other while part of the adventure are not as much into the "Mystery" part of it. I know for each group "Mystery" changes meaning so I guess I am using it in the classical sense and not just a mystery or unknown in a plot. Players engage with those dependent on the secret and their connection to it.

I think I wanted to run this without making the players learn a bunch of stuff and knowing the players would still not know what the characters know. That was one of the gaps I wanted to bridge and avoid boring players who were not into the "Mystery" part of it but everyone enjoyed succeeding on a test to gain a clue.

Now test to gain a clue where a specific set of skills so the players couldn't maneuver or choose what they were best at but I was always open to skill checks I might not of thought of but I could see as reasonable.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think I wanted to run this without making the players learn a bunch of stuff and knowing the players would still not know what the characters know. That was one of the gaps I wanted to bridge and avoid boring players who were not into the "Mystery" part of it but everyone enjoyed succeeding on a test to gain a clue.

Now test to gain a clue where a specific set of skills so the players couldn't maneuver or choose what they were best at but I was always open to skill checks I might not of thought of but I could see as reasonable.

I am not sure if I understood... did you simply call for one dice roll (ability/skill checks) in each encounter without any player's input, and if successful you gave out the clue, or if failed you gave a penalty (in the form of an additional difficulty)?

There are players who do not like thinking, but they like gambling (i.e. rolling dice with minimal decisions), so this sounds like a good way to feature a "mystery" in the adventure for those kind of players.

I generally play with the opposite kind of people, but that's another matter.

 

[TheDelphian]

I ran it so that the players would come upon an encounter that they usually arrived at with their guide or just came across as they traveled. It may be social such as interviewing the local workers, exploration in a place where normally non aggressive creatures had attacked workers, or they had a combat with the creatures exhibiting odd behavior.

In each case the Players and characters knew they were investigating for "Clues" as to what was happening. They chose skills to check things out. The difference from a skill challenge is that in a skill challenge players are encouraged to be creative and stretch the boundaries and therefore lean into their highest/best skills which makes sense. What I did instead is the players suggested skills and I knew for each encounter what skills would apply, usually 2-3.

In a social one it may be Sense Motive, Persuasion, Investigation. In an exploration it may be Survival, Nature. In a combat or after the combat it may be Sense Motive, Nature, Investigation.

But for all of them if the player asked can I try this ability, like a spell or use Arcana to figure something out I might allow it. Such as they used Arcana later in the adventure when one player asked did they have enough clues where they could apply that and I allowed it. Were I would not have allowed it earlier when they didn't know enough for it to apply.

So there is thought for how to go about the investigation and often I gave them choices of different paths with enough information to know to what type of encounter may occur.

The biggest gain from doing things this way for me was the Clues where just called clues with me adding what was the clue to add some foreshadowing and allow the players who liked to figure things it but the goal was to avoid an hour of guessing and trying to solve the puzzle.

It worked sort of like Blades in the Dark that solves the issues with a heist adventure by spending 2 hours planning a heist for things to go wrong immediately and waste all that players time. I as a player love the planning and a GM love it as well but not all players do. I was trying to reach a middle ground.